Wearable computing technology, or so-called “smart” clothing, fuses personal expression with high-tech functionality. Likewise, “smart” furniture seeks to provide functional furniture (e.g., a couch, a chair, a bench) while also integrating electronics that allow manipulation of a local or remote computing system. In the context of wearable computing technology, it may be aesthetically pleasing or otherwise fashionable to prominently display smart devices on, for example, a sleeve, a wrist, a belt, a thigh, or other visible location on their person. Some such example devices include smart watches, personal music players (e.g., MP3) and eye-glass computers.
In other cases, users may hide or otherwise place wearable technology in locations on their person less visible based on a user's particular personal preferences. For example, users may tuck earbuds and associated wiring into special earbud pockets provided by a jacket, or can place a smart watch beneath a sleeve. While such clothing features allow wearable technology to be hidden, or at least partially hidden, this may unfortunately place wearable computing devices out-of-reach. For instance, a portable music player (e.g., MP3) placed within a user's pocket may obstruct or otherwise complicate the user's ability to, for example, access user input features to make volume adjustments and manipulate playback (e.g., play, pause, forward, and so on). Accordingly, providing aesthetically pleasing smart clothing and furniture that also allows substantially unobstructed user-input raises numerous non-trivial challenges.
These and other features of the present embodiments will be understood better by reading the following detailed description, taken together with the figures herein described. The accompanying drawings are not intended to be drawn to scale. In the drawings, each identical or nearly identical component that is illustrated in various figures is represented by a like numeral. For purposes of clarity, not every component may be labeled in every drawing.